This is Voice of San Diego’s last week in Liberty Station. We’re moving our offices downtown and celebrating the transition by leading a walking tour of some of downtown and East Village’s arts destinations. Reserve your tickets today.

♦♦♦

Justine Epstein and Greg Theilmann don’t flinch in the face of the inevitable question that friends, family members and just about anyone who knows they’re opening a bookstore in North Park ask; some version of, But why are you opening a brick-and-mortar bookstore now when everything’s gone digital?

“It does seem strange,” said Epstein. “There are a lot of options now, especially with consuming media in general.”

Epstein worked at a used bookstore in Hillcrest for a decade before striking out on her own. She said the old shop where she worked made it through the economic slump and even saw business boom after 2013. She’s confident the used-bookstore formula is far from broken. If someone’s looking for a new book and knows the title, she said an e-reader is probably the best bet. But for people who only know they want to read something interesting – a book that’s stood the test of time – she said there’s no online replacement that can compare to walking up and down the aisles of a used bookstore and talking to the knowledgeable book nerds who staff the place.

“Kindle and Amazon, they’re really great if you know exactly what you want, but I find it difficult to browse or find something you might not have known you wanted,” she said. “And I think people are sick of buying something and not really having it, not being able to share it with other people and their friends, at least legally.”

The serendipity of discovery and the share-ability of physical books are two arguments Theilmann uses, too, when explaining the “Why now?” question. Plus, he said, there are all sorts of other reasons people are still buying books.

“Even if they’re doing something as pretentious as putting it on their shelves so people can see it,” he said. “Everyone does that.”

Epstein and Theilmann said they don’t expect the bookstore to last forever, but it feels right for right now.

“There are a lot of things [about a bookstore] that are appealing or even charming maybe,” Epstein said. “It is a bit old-fashioned in a lot of ways. I don’t think we expect to be in business for the next 50 years, but I think there is a niche market here, especially in North Park, and people like us have responded well to the idea of keeping that alive, at least for a little while longer.”

You’re reading the Culture Report, Voice of San Diego’s weekly collection of the region’s cultural news.

Preserving East Village’s Stories

Thanks to Petco Park and state redevelopment funds, which have since been whisked away, no other San Diego neighborhood has gone through as many changes as quickly as San Diego’s East Village.

Jorge Moreno sees how the once heavily artsy, warehouse-laden neighborhood’s identity continues to rapidly transform. As someone who counts himself part of the East Village art scene in the ’90s, he wants to do what he can to help preserve some of its most important stories.

Moreno’s built a website, The East Village Project, and he’s been working to collect and preserve personal anecdotes, photos and other tidbits about the East Village from the ’80s and ’90s.

“The purpose of this project is to have an online record of an era that deeply touched everyone that had a part in the life and creation of one of San Diego’s iconic landmarks,” he wrote on the site. “If you lived, worked, created art or simply enjoyed the East Village, we invite you to send us your profile and become part of this online community.”

Moreno is in the midst of scanning Buss’ images and uploading them to the site. He’s also been successful at getting artists like Mario Torero, whose “Eyes of Picasso” mural was painted on the ReinCarnation Project for a few years, to share personal stories about their East Village experience.

• Back in 2011,VOSD’s former Culture Report maven, Kelly Bennett, wrote in depth about Buss’ ReinCarnation Project and Torero’s mural. She also wrote about the arts space in the building, formerly housed by now-defunct Sushi Contemporary Performance and Visual Arts, and Buss’ lasting legacy of inking a deal with San Diego’s then-redevelopment agency, Centre City Development Corp., that said the space must be rented to an arts group for less-than-market-rate rents through 2031.

Aside from a few one-night rentals, that space, by the way, has remained empty since Sushi shut down in 2011. I plan on talking to the real estate company that owns the space about why that is. If you have any insight, shoot me an email.

The Port’s New Public Art and Other San Diego Arts and Culture News

• The Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina’s $200 million redevelopment project will include three new pieces of public art, compliments of the Port of San Diego’s percent-for-art program. (press release)